Tag Archives: City

Even on the edge of Brisbane’s CBD it is not hard to find a cafe. While not as common as they are further into the CBD, it still seems like there is one in every third office building. Like Pour Boy Espresso.

Pour Boy Espresso is a reasonable place to go, and what you come to expect from a city cafe. They sell food and coffee, and from the look at their set up, they can probably handle the busier parts of the day well. Though I did not get to test this hypothesis, because I was there a little ahead of the lunch rush.

I wasn’t there food, but I did get to try their coffee. Perhaps my expectations were raised by what I’ve heard others say of the place, but I was a little disappointed. The coffee was OK, like a lot of other cafes. For a black coffee it was served a little hot, and the flavour was fairly light, probably more suited for a milk coffee. In theory at least.

Maybe I missed something. A quick search on the cafe’s name online will return a decent number of enthusiastically positive reviews. There is even a Courier Mail article in there too. While I am sure that some people like this cafe a lot, and the food did look interesting, I am not sure that I agree. Pour Boy Espresso was a nice cafe, like so many more.

It is hard to find a good coffee in the city outside of normal work hours. After 4pm, almost all of the cafes close, leaving just a handful huddling around the mall, nothing like the number of options available during the workday.

Bar Moda is an office hours cafe. Sitting in the foyer at 307 Queen Street and surounded by other office blocks, it is not likely to get much foot traffic on the weekend. During the week is another matter entirely though.

Bar Moda has two counters, one facing out of the building and another inside. There is seating near both, but most importantly, the two counters keep the takeaway orders turning over fast. The coffee is strong and good, though the latest one I had was pretty hot for black coffee. I imagine it would have been fine as a milk coffee.

There is one more thing: they have free WiFi via CafeScreen. The service looked interesting and it ran an image insert/replace in some RSS feeds within Flipboard. Twitter and email were fine, but I did not stay long enough to try it out properly.

GW Private Room is the first hairdresser I’ve been to that offers wine as well as tea or coffee. They also do breakfast. It is a neat little place in Festival Towers with free parking for customers and one of the coolest two level layouts I have seen. Hannah recommended the place, and it was a great choice.

They also serve black coffee in a glass. It and the yoghurt arrived on a rectangular plate as they got to work on my hair. It is actually harder than you think to eat and get your hair cut without getting hair in your food.

The coffee was OK but the glass was too hot. I guess this is why no-one else serves black coffee in something so conductive. Since they have massage chairs for the customers to sit in while they get their hair washed, I don’t plan to hold this against them.

The haircut was very good, the coffee was very ordinary, but overall in terms of service, GW Private Room does stand out.